DNA Testing Update: Skaggs and the Isle of Man

It’s time for an update on the Skaggs DNA testing.  Several Skaggs have submitted Y-DNA test results since the last time we checked in and additional autosomal DNA testing results for Skaggs descendants have been posted to GEDMatch.  These new tests have produced some interesting results.

First the Y-DNA testing.  We now have at least eight Skaggs posting their Y-DNA results to the Yfull website.  Yfull is trying to document the entire human Y-chromosome and the Skaggs have done their part here along with the Keig family from the Isle of Man.  The Skaggs and Keig families were together in the R-BY30722 subclade about 700 years ago, with a most recent common ancestor about 600 years ago.  This is consistent with Chris Keig’s research that the Skeig family started calling themselves Keig in documents on the Isle of Man about 600 years ago. The R-Y133827 subclade shows two Keig tests from the Isle of Man (YF19735 and YF12075).  The Skaggs family separated from the Keigs about 600 years ago with the R-Y151542 subclade, which contains a test result from a Skaggs family of Ohio pioneers (YF18954).  This Ohio family moved from Maryland around 1800 via Pennsylvania.

An unknown Skaggs family has tested as R-FT6584 subclade.  I sure would like to find out who he descends from.

The descendants of the Long Hunters and the East Tennessee Charles who was an intruder at Sims Settlement appear in the R-FT12801 subclade as tests YF64789 and YF18953.  This is interesting because, if correct, the Long Hunters and East Tennessee Skaggs have the same subclade.  More test results here would help us get a more accurate estimate of when their most recent common ancestor was born.  I think descendants of the Long Hunters, the East Tennessee Skaggs, James and Susanna Skaggs should all fit in here.

The descendants of Old Peter Skaggs show up in the R-BY44771 subclade.  An interesting finding is for YF18955 in subclade R-BY114454.  He is a descendant of the Elijah Skaggs brick wall from Green County, Kentucky who died in the Civil War.  Even though Elijah was from Green County where several Long Hunters lived, he appears closer related to Old Peter Skaggs than the Long Hunters.

Yfull is an excellent way to visualize the Y-chromosome mutation over time.  For example, here you can see the Skaggs progression, starting at the top with the Isle of Man Keigs, moving to the Ohio pioneer Skaggs, then the Long Hunters, followed by Old Peter Skaggs and finally Elijah Skaggs.  With more test results we should get better estimates of when these mutations occurred, but you can see visually how we started on the Isle of Man and that the American test results dominate the more recent subclades.

For more information about the Isle of Man DNA project, check out Chris Keig's YouTube video here.

Finally, a descendant of Old Peter Skaggs claims a match to a descendant of Thomas Bailey Christian on GEDMatch.  I am in the process of investigating this and we will see if this testing is trying to tell us something.